FCTC: Action Now! Campaign

"Full implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control would bring the single biggest blow to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and respiratory disease."

- WHO Director-General Margaret Chan at the NCD Summit in New York, 19 Sept. 2011

Challenges to the effective implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) – including lack of political will, funding and capacity for tobacco control in low-resource countries – are undermining the success of the tobacco control movement to date.

In 2014, UN member states renewed their commitment to accelerate implementation of the FCTC. In this campaign, FCA is working to turn that pledge into reality at three levels: country level; FCTC Conference of the Parties (COP); and during various international health and development events.

In 2015 we had a number of notable successes. They include having tobacco control included in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), endorsed by the member states of the United Nations.

National development plans outline governments’ economic, social, cultural and environmental priorities, and determine how they spend their money. From 2014 to 2015, civil society organisations from Colombia, Peru and Uruguay worked to get strengthened tobacco control and action against non-communicable diseases (NCDs)Ɨ into these plans.

Many people now know that tobacco use is the world’s number one cause of preventable death, responsible for over 6 million deaths each year. Thus, the link between tobacco use and the health goal* included in the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is no surprise.